The Far Side of The World

Rating:
Summary: HMS Surprise in pursuit of Americans in the Pacific
Review: "The Far Side Of The World", the tenth installment in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, packs a lot of action, adventure and intrigue. Here our heroes are off to the South Pacific and its fertile whaling grounds in pursuit of a large U. S. Navy frigate which is harrasing British whalers. Along the way there are incredible twists and turns in the plot, much descriptive natural history and a thrilling showdown with the Americans. While this is not the best in the Aubrey-Maturin series, both the quality of O'Brian's writing and his well woven plot ensure that it is among the finest installments. Indeed, it is among the best in his miniature story arc chronicling naval warfare during the War of 1812.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping and well written
Review: An excellent addition to the Aubrey Maturin series. I would highly recommend it to any fan of the sea faring genre. In addition much reference is made to culture and naturalism. A real treat!

Rating:
Summary: Into The Pacific
Review: Another good tale that follows some little known historical events and the tremendous dangers seafarers faced. Fun to see the Galapagos Islands before Darwin with hints of what's to come. There are fascinating details on whales and whaling that would interest even landlubbers. Some quite surprising twists, from lesbian cannibals of Polynesia to 18th century abortion procedures again shows the wonderful depth of O'Brian's storytelling. A very fun read.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best in the series
Review: As a fan of O'Brian I liked this book, but even I had to admit I found this one very uneventful except for its brief moments. Unlike the other books in the series so far, this one strained credibilty a bit, too. I found the idea that the Aubrey would carelessly fling himself off his own ship to rescue Maturin without checking a) whether anyone would know he was going to do so and b) that the jolly-boat astern was really there to enable him to rescue him absurd. This is compounded by their, what seems to me, highly unlikely luck in being rescued from this predicament ultimately by the "Surprise" from a desert atoll. This seemed so out of sorts with the general realism of the series. I felt that the prospect of them being marooned on a desert island was actually a very interesting one that O'Brian could have investigated with great results. Also, I am, for one, finding the endless books devoted to the war of 1812 rather tiresome. This war, at worst an irritant to the Royal Navy at the time of much greater danger from the French, seems to be occupying far too many books out of all proportion to its historical interest.

Rating:
Summary: O'Brian's getting cramped for history. . . .
Review: As O'Brian admits in his Introduction to this tenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, he's beginning to run out of history; had he known the first novel would even *become* a series, he would have begun much earlier in Capt. Jack Aubrey's career. The result is that, where each of the earlier volumes was a self-contained narrative, with a few months, or even a few years, of dead space between it and the next, each of the most recent stories ends with a cliffhanger and seques directly into the next yarn. This one is also much more a story of maritime life and its hardships than a naval adventure, with Jack taking the JOYFUL SURPRISE out of the Mediterranean, down to the South Atlantic, around the Horn, and into the vast and still largely uncharted mid-Pacific in pursuit of the U.S. Navy's NORFOLK, sent to harrass the British whaling fleet. It's a long, hard, generally uncomfortable trek, with Aubrey and Maturin being marooned -- twice. There's also more of the soap opera element in this one, with a parallel story of onboard adultery and murder. For me, the most interesting episode is the pair's encounter with the feminist crew of a South Seas double-hulled ocean-going canoe. This volume is a lot of fun for the experienced reader of O'Brian's novels, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for a reader new to the series.

Rating:
Summary: O'Brian the Master
Review: Even when held to Patrick O'Brian's own impossibly high standards for wit, erudition and graceful prose, this tale stands out. The jaw-dropping plot crowns all.

Rating:
Summary: Another strong addition to a phenomenal series
Review: Given the existence of the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, something has to be said initially about that. I would very strongly recommend anyone who has seen the movie and wants to read the novel to resist the temptation to do so. Mainly this is because it is the tenth novel in a series, and the author assumes that you have read the previous nine. If you pick this up and attempt to read it without having read the others, you will be utterly at sea (pun intended). I also do not recommend this novel to viewers of the movie (who don't intend to read the other novels first) because the novel and the movie bear very little resemblence to one another. There is, in fact, almost nothing in common between the two except for the two main characters, the fact that the H.M.S. Surprise is chasing another ship (though American rather than British), they encounter the Gallapagos Islands, and they end up in the Pacific. In other words, there is only the most superficial resemblence between the novel and the movie.

For readers of the series, this is one of the stronger additions to the sequence. Instead of taking the Surprise back to England where she is to be sold or perhaps broken up, Jack is summoned to go out in search of the U.S.S. Norfolk, an American ship sent out to harrass British whaling ships in the Pacific. Although things go well at first, it turns out to be an almost doomed voyage, with one catastrophe after another taking place. None of the misfortunes dooms the mission, but neither do they allow anything to go smoothly. The only thing that saves the mission is that the Norfolk ends up having even less luck than the Surprise.

The key to Patrick O'Brians series is not to focus too very much on any one novel. There is truly a sense in which all the novels together form a single saga. Unlike other series, no single book stands very well alone. In fact, each novel functioned more like a chapter in a very long book than an independent novel. For the reader who plows through all of the novels, this can be immensely satisfying, like reading the longest novel ever written. I'm a little surprised that the publishers didn't contest O'Brian's strategy (or perhaps they did but he successfully resisted). Most publishers prefer series that can be entered at any point in the sequence, but with the Aubrey-Maturin books you need to start at the beginning or not at all.

While I do not recommend neophytes beginning with this series, I do heartily commend the whole group of books. This is not merely the finest set of historical novels ever written, as has often been noted by literary critics and reviewers: it is arguably the finest long series of novels of any genre of the past hundred years. It has the potential to appeal to a remarkable range of people, whether fans of great literature, those engaged in sailing, those who enjoy first rate historical fiction, or those who like sea faring adventure. It is a sequence that can truly be many things to many people, and yet manage to satisfy all.

Rating:
Summary: Another strong addition to a phenomenal series
Review: Given the existence of the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, something has to be said initially about that. I would very strongly recommend anyone who has seen the movie and wants to read the novel to resist the temptation to do so. Mainly this is because it is the tenth novel in a series, and the author assumes that you have read the previous nine. If you pick this up and attempt to read it without having read the others, you will be utterly at sea (pun intended). I also do not recommend this novel to viewers of the movie (who don't intend to read the other novels first) because the novel and the movie bear very little resemblence to one another. There is, in fact, almost nothing in common between the two except for the two main characters, the fact that the H.M.S. Surprise is chasing another ship (though American rather than British), they encounter the Gallapagos Islands, and they end up in the Pacific. In other words, there is only the most superficial resemblence between the novel and the movie.

For readers of the series, this is one of the stronger additions to the sequence. Instead of taking the Surprise back to England where she is to be sold or perhaps broken up, Jack is summoned to go out in search of the U.S.S. Norfolk, an American ship sent out to harrass British whaling ships in the Pacific. Although things go well at first, it turns out to be an almost doomed voyage, with one catastrophe after another taking place. None of the misfortunes dooms the mission, but neither do they allow anything to go smoothly. The only thing that saves the mission is that the Norfolk ends up having even less luck than the Surprise.

The key to Patrick O'Brians series is not to focus too very much on any one novel. There is truly a sense in which all the novels together form a single saga. Unlike other series, no single book stands very well alone. In fact, each novel functioned more like a chapter in a very long book than an independent novel. For the reader who plows through all of the novels, this can be immensely satisfying, like reading the longest novel ever written. I'm a little surprised that the publishers didn't contest O'Brian's strategy (or perhaps they did but he successfully resisted). Most publishers prefer series that can be entered at any point in the sequence, but with the Aubrey-Maturin books you need to start at the beginning or not at all.

While I do not recommend neophytes beginning with this series, I do heartily commend the whole group of books. This is not merely the finest set of historical novels ever written, as has often been noted by literary critics and reviewers: it is arguably the finest long series of novels of any genre of the past hundred years. It has the potential to appeal to a remarkable range of people, whether fans of great literature, those engaged in sailing, those who enjoy first rate historical fiction, or those who like sea faring adventure. It is a sequence that can truly be many things to many people, and yet manage to satisfy all.

Rating:
Summary: smart and funny adventure on the high seas
Review: Having seen the recent movie preview for "Master and Commander", I was intrigued to learn more about this story and its author. Turns out, he has written a whole 'sea chest' of these adventue at sea titles... and this one is a fantastic read!

Closely following history, and using as much detail as possible to keep the reader informed without distracting from the plot, the author both educates and entertains the reader with his detailed knowledge of early 19th century sea life aboard a British war ship. The plot for this title is simple. A British naval ship, with the heroic Commander Jack Aubrey, is sent to puruse and capture a pesky American ship that on a mission to disrupt Btritish whaling operations in the south Pacific.

I liked the book for many reasons. First, I love reading history, and historical ficiton. I love reading about people who had the courage to climb aboard a small wooden ship and sail to the other side of the world knowing that half the crew would probably not survive or return home... It's the modern equivilent of half a dozen guys jumping inside a rocket and launching themselves to the planet Mars, but without GPS navigation, computers and all of the other technical gadgets that we rely on today. They went to unknown and dangerous places as if it was routine. I love these guys... and i loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: smart and funny adventure on the high seas
Review: Having seen the recent movie preview for "Master and Commander", I was intrigued to learn more about this story and its author. Turns out, he has written a whole 'sea chest' of these adventue at sea titles... and this one is a fantastic read!

Closely following history, and using as much detail as possible to keep the reader informed without distracting from the plot, the author both educates and entertains the reader with his detailed knowledge of early 19th century sea life aboard a British war ship. The plot for this title is simple. A British naval ship, with the heroic Commander Jack Aubrey, is sent to puruse and capture a pesky American ship that on a mission to disrupt Btritish whaling operations in the south Pacific.

I liked the book for many reasons. First, I love reading history, and historical ficiton. I love reading about people who had the courage to climb aboard a small wooden ship and sail to the other side of the world knowing that half the crew would probably not survive or return home... It's the modern equivilent of half a dozen guys jumping inside a rocket and launching themselves to the planet Mars, but without GPS navigation, computers and all of the other technical gadgets that we rely on today. They went to unknown and dangerous places as if it was routine. I love these guys... and i loved this book.